Suspected Mariposa Botnet Mastermind in Slovenia

The Mariposa infected up to 12.7 Million PCs at its peak with more than half of the fortune 1,000 companies believed to have been compromised, with 40 major banks.

The hacker, Matjaz Skorjanc alias Iserdo supposed to have been launched the famous Mariposa botnet has gone on trial in Slovenia.

The hacker, Iserdo, or Matjaz Skorjanc , 26, supposed to have been behind the mariposa botnet and is on test in Slovenia, reported theinequirer.net on August 7, 2012.

In Spain during March 2010, one group of Mariposa botnet herders were arrested. Three men caught up by the Spanish authorities were trusted to have brought the code from other group, as none of them possessed the programming skill required to form the malware.

The officials of FBI worked with Spanish and Slovenian authorities to track down Mariposa's mastermind, Iserdo.

He accused between $500 for basic version of the botnet code and up to $1,300 for more developed ones, which comprised of customized features, e.g., capabilities which permit its operators to grab credit cards and online banking credentials.

The money he earned by selling the spiteful code in around 115,000 EUR ( $ 142,000) was again kept in the bank accounts of Iserdo then girlfriend namely, Nusa Coh who stands trial tolerating money laundering accusation.

Also, Nusa Coh now declares that she is not linked in her ex-boyfriend's (Iserdo's) crimes, as reported by softpedia.com dated August 7, 2012. She claims that during 2007, while they met, he says that he was a computer programmer by designation and advised that to submit the money in her account for the benefit of tax.

However, according to the defense, the suspect has nothing to do with the spiteful software. In the coming hearings, the trial will present all 6,000 pages of evidence it has against the accused (Iserdo).

The US has requested the man to be extradited, although Slovenian authorities have not accepted to agree on it.

Commenting on Iserdo's trial, Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, also involved in Mariposa's shutdown said: "I am really happy seeing how legal procedures are going ahead, it is very important to see how years of work of so many people have these results," as published by TechWeekEurope on August 7, 2012.